Anti-Japan Protests Erupt in China Over Disputed Island

Japanese activists raised flags early Sunday on Uotsuri Island, part of the small archipelago known in Japan as Senkaku and in China as Diaoyu.Credit
Kyodo/Reuters

HONG KONG — Anti-Japanese protests spread across China over the weekend, and the landing of Japanese activists on a disputed island on Sunday sharply intensified tensions between the two countries.

Protesters took to the streets in nearly a dozen Chinese cities on Saturday and Sunday in response to Japan’s detention on Wednesday and deportation on Friday of a separate group of activists from Hong Kong, Macau and China who had landed on the same island, part of a chain of uninhabited islands known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkakus in Japan. Demonstrations took place in cities up and down China’s eastern provinces, according to Xinhua, the official news agency.

The Chinese state news media portrayed the demonstrations as fairly small, each involving fewer than 200 people, and not extending to inland provinces. But photographs posted on Sina Weibo, the country’s most widely used microblogging service, suggested that the crowds had been far larger. In one photo said to be from the southwestern city of Chengdu, deep in China’s interior, the number of protesters appeared to be in the thousands.

“Defend the Diaoyu Islands to the death,” one banner said. Another said, “Even if China is covered with graves, we must kill all Japanese.”

Photo

Thousands of protesters turned out in Chengdu, China, on Sunday in response to Japanese activists landing on a disputed island in the South China Sea.Credit
Associated Press

Another photograph showed a handwritten sign taped to the entrance of Suning, a popular electronics store, telling customers it was no longer selling Japanese products.

Some protests appear to have turned violent. According to several postings, demonstrators on Sunday attacked sushi restaurants or other businesses perceived to have a Japanese connection. Several photographs said to be from Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong, showed what appeared to be damaged or overturned cars — most of them Japanese models — as well as several police vehicles.

The demonstrations appeared to be sanctioned and chaperoned by the police, who generally prohibit public protests unless they suit the needs of the Communist Party. In the past, Beijing has allowed nationalist sentiment to bubble up into street demonstrations, but the authorities usually keep them contained out of concern they might spiral out of control or turn into popular antigovernment sentiment.

Even as the protests began unfolding Sunday morning, a group of conservative Japanese activists might have planted the seeds for further anger in China. About 10 of the activists, including local assembly members from Tokyo, swam ashore to the disputed island, Uotsuri. While Japan controls the island chain, the Tokyo government restricts access to avoid inflaming regional tensions. The 10 who landed Sunday did so without permission, and were later questioned by the Japanese Coast Guard.

Members of the group said they were responding to the pro-China activists’ landing, and they urged Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to do more to defend the islands. “Four days ago there was an illegal landing of Chinese people on the island,” Koichi Mukoyama, a lawmaker who was sailed to the island but did not swim ashore, was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. “We need to solidly reaffirm our own territory.”

Photo

Confrontations between Japan and China on or near the contested islands have the potential to become larger international incidents.Credit
The New York Times

The Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted angrily, after having asked Japan to make sure no activists reached the island. “Japanese right-wing elements have illegally violated China’s territorial sovereignty,” Qin Gang, a spokesman, said on the ministry’s Web site. “Relevant officials from the Foreign Ministry have already made stern representations to the Japanese ambassador, making a strong protest and urging Japan to cease actions that are damaging China’s territorial sovereignty.”

The Japanese activists were part of a group of conservative members of Parliament and local politicians who arrived at the island on nearly two dozen boats that carried about 150 people. The Japanese Coast Guard did not release the names of the activists who had made it to the island’s rocky shore. Photos of the landing by the Kyodo News Agency showed several men and at least one woman standing in wet street clothes as they displayed a Japanese flag on shore.

In China, Global Times, a nationalist-inflected newspaper owned by People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, held an impromptu seminar on the crisis on Sunday, with many participants calling for more radical action. During the seminar, one hawkish analyst, Dai Xu, called on the Chinese military to seize Japanese ships.

Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, one of the most outspokenly hawkish generals in China, called on China to send 100 boats to defend the islands.

“If necessary, we could make the Diaoyu Islands a target range for China’s Air Force and plant mines around them,” he said, according to a microblog posting by the newspaper.

Photo

An anti-Japan protester raised a fist during a protest outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Sunday.Credit
Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press

But Hu Xijin, the editor of Global Times and an organizer of the seminar, counseled restraint, a departure from his usually militant writings on China’s territorial disputes. He belittled the Japanese activists as “provocative right-wing monkeys,” but said the dispute was not worth a full-scale war between the countries. “Chinese people, please don’t be overly angered by this,” he wrote. “We should have more confidence and view Japan from a global perspective.”

While many postings on microblogs expressed rage against the Japanese, a significant number criticized the Chinese government for its timidity. Many such postings, however, were promptly deleted.

Confrontations between Japan and China on or near the contested islands have the potential to become larger international incidents. China halted exports of crucial rare earth metals to Japan for nearly two months after the Japanese Coast Guard in 2010 detained a mainland Chinese fishing vessel that slammed into a coast guard ship when it was intercepted near one of the islands.

The export halt drew international attention to Chinese restrictions on exports of rare earths and helped lead to the filing last spring of a World Trade Organization case challenging China’s right to limit exports of such important minerals. Japan joined the United States and the European Union in filing the case, the first time that Tokyo has brought a trade case against its much larger neighbor.

A rare-earth industry executive said there had been no sign so far this time of a disruption in Chinese exports of the strategic minerals. The executive insisted on anonymity because of the diplomatic delicacy of the issue.

A version of this article appears in print on August 20, 2012, on Page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: In Cities Across China, Protests Erupt Against Japan Over Disputed Island. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe